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The Dictionary of Sydney
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The Echoes band entertaining dancers at Surf Ci...

The Echoes band entertaining dancers at Surf City, Sydney 1963

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© By kind permission of

National Library of Australia

[PIC Online access #PIC/14971/6]

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Breeding delinquents: Surf City 1963-1966

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Adolescence Beach Culture Dancing Entertainment and Spectacle Fashion Music Nightclubs

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Surf City

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Kings Cross

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Kings Cross Theatre

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Stomp

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Smith, Robin

Photographer, artist and author whose work is held by institutions across Australia.

National Library of Australia

Breeding delinquents: Surf City 1963-1966

The venue Surf City in the former Kings Cross Theatre on Darlinghurst Road was accused of ‘breeding delinquents’ soon after it opened in 1963. Despite its short lifetime, the venue is crucial to the musical history of Australia. For three years it served as the spiritual home of Australian beat music, giving rise to mainstream pop stars and underground cult heroes whose influence remains today.

Adolescence

Dancing

Entertainment and Spectacle

Music

Fashion

Beach Culture

Nightclubs

Surf City

One of Sydney's biggest 'beat' music venues in the 1960s, located in the former Kings Cross Theatre that was demolished to make way for the underground railway station and the Crest Hotel.

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Kings Cross

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In the nineteenth century one of Sydney's most prestigious suburbs, it became home to a vibrant bohemian community and later Sydney's red light district. Named for the intersection of Darlinghurst Road, William and Victoria Streets and once called Queens Cross, the area is now a neon lit mecca for tourists and Sydneysiders.

Kings Cross Theatre

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Cinema on the corner of Darlinghurst Road and Victoria Streets at Kings Cross that opened in April 1916. Part of Frank Waddington's chain of picture houses, the cinema seated over 2000 and was described as 'particularly lavish'. A 'junior' nightclub called the Birdcage, run by radio compere Peter Bergin was open briefly in the venue in 1963 after the theatre closed, and soon replaced by John Harrigan's Surf City, that occupied the building from 1963 until 1966 when the building was demolished, to be replaced by the Crest Hotel.

Stomp

Simple and energetic dance that became an Australian teenage craze in the early 1960s with the rise of surf music. Some councils tried to ban it as they feared buildings would collapse. In February 1964 45,000 people turning up to Lane Cove National Park for the Stomp National Championships.

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